M97

[alan4908]

Well, my first experience of processing something green - the planetary nebula, M97 aka the Owl Nebula. 

Having previously decided on an LRGB approach with some form of Ha blend, I thought I'd take a reasonable amount of Ha in an attempt to boost detail.

On processing the image I discovered that blending the Ha into the Red channel destroyed the green colour of the object, so I opted for a highly black clipped Ha blend into the Lum channel.  Another major processing issue was that all the subs had strong scattered light rays from a bright star that was out of the field of view, these where so strong that they went all the way across the image !

Anyway, after a bit of processing I ended up with the image below which shows a bit of detail including the central blue star.  The image represents 22 hours integration time. 

To me it looks like a green planet with red polar ice caps. 

Alan

 

LIGHTS:L:15, R:9. G:11, B:13 x 600s, Ha: 28x1800s, DARKS:30, BIAS:100, FLATS:40 all at -20C.

[Allinthehead]

Very nicely done Alan. Could be an Aurora on Titan

[SteveA]

Wow, that really does look green....very nice indeed.

Steve

[Fredster1970]

wow that looks superb. Great image. Looks a little different to how I see it visually in the scope......

[Demonperformer]

That is a gorgeous rendition of the Owl, Alan.

[peter shah]

Lovely shot great colour

[alan4908]

16 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Very nicely done Alan. Could be an Aurora on Titan

Thanks Richard - yes the green does have the shade of an Aurora. 

16 hours ago, SteveA said:

Wow, that really does look green....very nice indeed.

Steve

Thanks Steve. I also was quite surprised about round it is, I guess that is why they are called planetary nebula's.

15 hours ago, Fredster1970 said:

wow that looks superb. Great image. Looks a little different to how I see it visually in the scope......

Thanks for the comment - I haven't actually seen it visually myself ! - my obsey is a pure automated imaging system.

Alan

[Petergoodhew]

That's a mighty fine Owl.  If you get loads of OIII and add that to the green and blue channels you will find more nebulosity around it.

[iansmith]

Great image, good detail. I like the red polar cap 

Cheers, Ian

[alan4908]

2 hours ago, Petergoodhew said:

That's a mighty fine Owl.  If you get loads of OIII and add that to the green and blue channels you will find more nebulosity around it.

Thanks Peter - yes, I understand it is quite strong in OIII so it would be good to capture some, so I may well follow your suggestion. Alan

44 minutes ago, iansmith said:

Great image, good detail. I like the red polar cap 

Cheers, Ian

Thanks Ian 

[Shibby]

Looking great! The outer ring of O-iii is just starting to show up, too.

[alan4908]

4 hours ago, Shibby said:

Looking great! The outer ring of O-iii is just starting to show up, too.

Thanks Shibby !

Alan